This morning, Clare and I drove away from our new land, after having spent a full week (8 nights) there, for the very first time.
This was our second time 'living' there, after having spent 5 days camping in our own garden, the previous time, immediately after we had acquired the land/signed the contract, two and a half weeks ago.
This time around, it felt even better and it did help that we were blessed with some cooler weather.
In fact, on the way there, last Wednesday, we drove through a mountain forest in an areat that we like a lot. It started raining and the temperature was basically cut in half. It quickly cooled down from low/mid-30s Celsius to about 16 Celsius.
So much so, in fact, that our Summer clothes suddenly felt inadequate and we had to put on a sweater.
Around the same time our window wipers stopped working. And to make matter worse or to add to the adventure, the sun started setting.
We had to get out of the car every now and then to wipe the drops of the window and - luckily - the rain eventually stopped before our vision became too bad.
Combine all this with arriving on our new land in the dark but not before navigation had send us the wrong way, a detour on country roads, which led to us getting more and more tired.
We eventually managed to make it though, just before it really got dark.
Back home, we crept straight into our tent, where we had some late night pasta ( leftover from our lunch ) before we hit the (proverbial) hay.
From the next day onwards, life has mostly been pretty beautiful and peaceful, albeit 'hard' work.
Although we basically have to start from scratch ( as we bought a hardly ready to live in property built on a 1.1 hectare plot of land that has not been worked much in the last couple of years ), we do love the challenge. It also helps that 
In fact, we literally have so many trees that we can't count them and a lot of them need to be taken care of.
This small olive tree was one of them...
Clare and I decided to get rid of the dead part of it, so it can grow more (olives) and so I did, yesterday, using a handsaw. This morning I gave it one week worth of compost ( kitchen scraps )
This shows the messy (right) side of our house, with stairs that lead to the stables underneath.
We did quite a bit of work there, in the last week, including removing most of the stairs and making them saver. They had turned into a booby trap of rolling stones ( not the band ) and rolling blocks of concrete, due to the dry months.
We also lowered the gate, to have more of a view, installed a washing/clothes line and started cleaning out the stables that not only contained loads of furniture and trash but also plenty of (very useful) old manure and straw from farm animals that were held there, decades ago. We even found a bunch of (animal) bones, as well as a living scorpion behind an old electricity socket and cobwebs that could be sold to Hollywood.
In the pictures above and below you see the top floor of our house/casetta, on the right ( a brick building, 'recently' constructed on some pretty old stables ). And on the left, the 87 year old neighbor's chicken shed and -coop. This anziano lives in town and comes by, daily, to feed his chickens, rooster and 3 cats and to take care of his orto ( vegetable garden ).
How can you not like the view from our land? We mainly see mountains and - depending on our position and the weather - a little strip of the Adriatic sea ( about 45 kms away ).
Here's a photo of the jam that Clare made from the harvestcof one of our plum trees. It tasted amazing, slightly sour ( we take it easy on processed sugar ) and was/is extra nice with cheese.
Now let me end this with a photo taken of the sunset ( it looked way better in real life ) from one of our (outdoor) latrines, taken after a number 2. It shows our house, for lack of a better word, in the background.
Stay tuned for further updates from me or
The next couple of days we will hang out in the city of Guardia Sanframondi. Two and a half hours away from our land ( Clare still has her house here - that is for sale ). The plan is to experience a festival called 'Vinalia' and to hopefully sell some of Clare's handmade/repurposed clothes and - who knows? - some of my cat drawings. More on that in Preparing for my first expo. It is quite the contrast to be back here and that is an understatement but we plan to make the best of it. At the same time, we are eager to go back to our land, again, in a handful of days and to make it even more beautiful, step by little step.
